


remedial chaos theory

by constanted



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, Family Drama, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-10 23:49:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12922827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constanted/pseuds/constanted
Summary: She can't do this alone.(or: six times Lucretia asks for help).





	1. o captain, my captain

**Author's Note:**

> soooo. this fic (and the title for it, because i rewatched community a little while back.) have been lingering in my head for the past few months--and, obvi, it's Very Me. but. i want to write more lucretia. i want lucretia to have something.
> 
> but, unfortunately, this fic is kinda sad! oops!
> 
> there'll be six more of these--one for each member of the ipre.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my hammering heart hears the voices   
> of spirits that tempt us, the scorn that they've spoken   
> i'll remember the sad frightened noises   
> of an old friend who dreamt once of storms on the ocean   
> and black eyes looking up from below
> 
> (black eyes / davis wirsig)

Davenport is easy to tell, hard to convince.

“I can’t do it alone,” she says, “You’re my captain. You—I need _you._ ”  
  
“Lucretia, I see the—I see the logic,” he sighs, and he rubs the bridge of his nose, “It’s—this plan is failing. I agree with you there, but that’s not to say that _your_ plan will work.”  
  
“We can figure out a Plan C as we work—just—Captain, listen, I made mine with the intention of it hurting no one, but—but people are _dying_ because of it. Summoning armies from yours. We can’t leave them out there. We can’t kill this world, it’s—it’s our last chance, sir.”  
  
He pauses, furrows his eyebrow in that way that he always does, so thoughtful, so… Davenport, and he just says, “I’ll think it over.”  
  
Lup goes missing a week later. He comes to her room that very day and he agrees to it, bearing the dark circles of his whole crew under his eyes. Merle’s been trying to help, but it’s not working.

See, it’s useful to have a pilot and an engineer on your side. He has trouble letting go of Merle—hell, so does she, but. He’s content giving Merle a calm life on the beach, so long as he can visit when possible. And the rest of them, it’s, he says, like he’s showing his kids away. An arcane research job for Barry. Stardom for Taako. Rustic calm for Magnus. It’s what they deserve—the happiness, the lives they were robbed of. They can find new families, ones that aren’t dying and running and dying and running—

He wants to see his family happy; she does as well. His partner and his _children._

He rejects getting rid of Lup. If she’s still out there—and she isn’t, she’s dead, regardless of Taako and Barry’s chases, their insistence that they’d know. 

“You had siblings, Lucretia,” he says, at her insistence.

“And I have them now,” she responds, "And losing them is going to kill me."

“Imagine if you lost their influence on your lives. What would you become, Lucretia? With Magnus, we’re taking him back to being twenty-one and reckless, erasing people that he met at twenty-one and reckless. We’re making him—and, look, _Taako_ , if we take out Lup. With Taako—“

“So we’ll keep her in the picture. But—mourning. How will he _mourn?”_

“How will anyone mourn? That carpenter’s wife died because of the stone, how will he mourn? How will—“  
  
“I concur,” she rolls her eyes, “I just—I worry. I’m—I’m so afraid, Captain. If I mess something up, I could hurt one of them—I could—I could destroy them.”  
  
“I’ll spot you,” he says, “That’s my job. Make sure the crew gets out safe.”

And she crosses out Lup’s name from the FAMILY section of Taako’s biography. He'll remember a sister.

He collaborates with the Millers, she works as a liaison to find skilled adventurers—the kind that they can trust. He builds engines, she builds bonds, and they don’t combine the two again.

“Something a bit off about a place called _Wonderland,_ kid,” he says, “Just offering a weapon of mass destruction that we erased from reality, no?”

“But it’s a _lead,_ Captain. We’re struck out on everything else, and—“  
  
“You’re not thinking. You’re—well—“  
  
“What? I’m _what_?”  
  
“Rushing in,” he says, simply, closes the book he’s reading.

“You think that the phrase’ll upset me, like I don’t check in on him monthly? You’re not the only one who makes visits down there. I saw Taako perform the other night.”

“He’s helping raise a child. Poorly. Merle, obviously.”

“You’d think he’d have instincts left from the five of us.”  
  
“Rowdy kids. All of you. How’s the rowdiest?”  
  
“Leading a damned revolution.”  
  
“Of course he is. Poorly?”  
  
“Not the _worst_ revolution he’s participated in.”  
  
“Fair. Any Barry updates?”

“Still teaching. Still giving tremendously boring lessons on a tremendously _non_ -boring subject.”

“How _does_ he manage to make necromancy sound like paint drying?”  
  
“You manage to do the same with flying a spaceship.”  
  
And there’s a laugh. There aren’t many of those lately. It’s odd.

They go to Wonderland, and they don’t win anything. Lucretia loses twenty years, he loses the memory of the sky back home—he says he’s seen enough skies to make up for it, but Lucretia can see pain in his eyes as he takes the sacrifice. And Cam—the sorcerer they picked up to help them in the Wilds—he is gored. He loses _so much_ , and her own indifference to it makes Lucretia feel sick.

The escape game necessitates the abandonment of one party member. 

“Captain,” says Lucretia, because they have to be on the same page. It’s the two of them against—well, everything. It has to be. It has been for a hundred and three years, now.

Almost to the day, if Lucretia understands how time works on this plane right.

“I’ll stay,” says Davenport.

“ _Captain_ ,” she repeats, this time with feeling.

“ _Lucretia_ ,” he mimics—scarily so. He’s very good at mimicking her, “You can’t just abandon Cam. He—“  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I trust that you can handle this alone. And I also trust that I can escape.”  
  
“I—can,” she says, after a moment’s pause, “I’ve done it before,” she says, more for herself than for him.

Cam uses his arm, singular, to fix his hat on his head, says, “I’m willing to stay, if—“  
  
“No,” says Davenport, authoritative, “You’re my crew. You two, get out.”

She stays in Raven’s Roost for a time after that, watches a revolution grow. She befriends Magnus, befriends his fiancé, she tries not to fester in her pain. She tells Cam the story of her life, and is fairly sure that he wouldn’t believe her if not for his remembrance of the war.

She’s at a wedding when Davenport shows up again, bloodied, mutilated, having trouble with words, but alive. He smiles at her. A bard plays a joyful, romantic song in the distance, unsuited to their reunion but present nevertheless.

“Captain,” she says.

“Davenport,” he nods.


	2. wholeheartedly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> can we hold one age at a time  
> keep places awake in your mind  
> remember, say that you're fine
> 
> (long new york / stolen jars)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's rushed, but i've had it written for a while, so. enjoy.

Taako agrees to it as soon as she brings it up—three days after Lup disappears. This surprises her. She thoughthe’d argue, but something Lup had said must have convinced him that something needed to be fixed.

“For Lup,” he says, and she nods.

“For Lup.”  
  
So it’s easy. So it makes sense. He’s good at shutting down emotions, so is she. They work well as a team—and she doesn’t have to cook for herself; she’s objectively bad at it. 

He insists on keeping himself in Magnus and Merle and Davenport and Barry’s lives, calling himself a friend of theirs—from school, maybe, or from an old job. And in Lup’s, if she’s still out there, wandering aimlessly. She insists on removing herself from their friends’ lives, fearing that too much involvement in the narratives that she’s weaved for them would be too meta of her. Sure, she visits, but. It’s not the way she _wants_ to be; she wants to be in their lives so desperately, but she knows she can’t be. Not with who she’s trying to be.

She goes into Wonderland with Cam, and she comes out alone. Taako, who "doesn't trust like that," greets her with a blanket and a rare hug.

The worst part of it is that Taako doesn’t even make fun of her for how she looks like a disaster, now, nor does he crack any jokes. He just flinches at the sight of her the first time, and goes on like it’s normal.

A human man finds the stone and uses it to turn elderberries into poison—some lash-out at the people for criticism of his show.

“I could’ve stopped it,” he says, something in his eye that looks almost like feeling. She’s older now, she’s harder now, and he looks as young and as cold as he ever has. But he’s warmer, in this moment. Full of fear and anger and fire, “ _We_ could’ve stopped this.”  
  
“I know.”

“We need help.”  
  
“Killian Yazgash and Avi Mangal are helping, lately, and—“  
  
“We need _more help_.”  
  
“And Lieutenant Captain Bane and Maureen Miller—“  
  
“Eugh, _Maureen.”_  
  
“Her son’s a shithead, but _she’s—“_  
  
“You’re in _love_ with her, I know.”  
  
“Shut up.”

“Look, Taako ain’t judging, but—you and I both know you can do better.”  
  
“It’s my damned relationship, Taako. Also, she has a lead on the gauntlet, _so_ —“  
  
“Wait. _Maureen_ has a lead on the gauntlet?”  
  
“Of course. I sent her on Lup’s trail—so, like, necrotic energy, flames, uh, big shiny gloves that make you want to set cities ablaze—“  
  
“And the umbrella. She brought the umbrella. Why didn’t you tell me this?”  
  
“Was saving it for your one-hundred-seventieth.”  
  
“Two-hundred-sixty-ninth, thanks.”

She waves his correction off, says, “Whatever—“  
  
“Sixty-nine’s in that one, Luke. No matter how old you look, it’s still fuckin’ funny—“  
  
“Ironically, sure—“  
  
“Oh, absolutely, but—“  
  
“Anyway, I was trying to confirm that the lead is, y’know, _real_ first—“  
  
“Another thing I don’t like about your little girlfriend. She’s _lied_ about leads. You remember that?”  
  
“Look, it’s just—it’s faulty science.”  
  
“Talk to me when this lead’s proved to be real, ‘kay?”1

And it isn’t. They don’t find Lup, they don’t find a gauntlet, they don’t find that umbrella.

What they do find, however, is a six year old human boy who will not leave them alone. The two of them break off from the group of adventurers they’re with, but the kid follows them.

“Ma’am,” he says, pulling at her robes, as they trail through the cave—this is a spelunking expedition. She didn’t know that children spelunker in this world. He asks, “What’s your _real_ name?”  
  
“Like I said,” she says, because she has, “It’s Adriane Whisar, and that’s my assistant. Justin.”  
  
Taako waves, “Yup, I’m Justin, that’s me. Justin. Good ol’ Juice.“  
  
Justin has always been his least developed character. He had insisted upon using Justin, because Greg’s too comedic and none of the rest were good for the situation at hand, but, look, she’s sure he could have made Tim work for this.

“You’re not helping your case. What are your real names?” the boy is insistent. Glasses too big for his face, gap teeth, band aids scattered on his arms, legs, and face.

“What’s _your_ real name?” Lucretia decides to play along.

“Angus McDonald, the world’s greatest detective,” he has a lisp and everything.

“World’s greatest?”  
  
“I’m not being braggy!” he says, “I really am!”  
  
“And you’re six?” Taako is doubled over while Lucretia tries desperately to 

“Well I detectived good enough to see through your fake name horseshit!”

“My name’s Lucretia, that’s Taako. Why are _you_ investigating these caves…” and she pauses, for effect, “Detective?”  
  
“I know you’re making fun of me, but a dwarf disappeared near here a few years back!”

“Well, we can’t get in regardless, so,” says Taako, “Shall we _go_?”  
  
“There’s a missing person and no one knows why or how he died! Isn’t that suspicious?”  
  
“No,” say both of them at once.

After some nagging, they sigh and carry the boy back to the ship, inoculate him, the whole shebang. Gods, Lucretia hates kids. Taako throws himself into the whole kid situation, after some original resistance—he’s wont to do that, Taako. Ever since Lup left, he's been distracting himself. Working on inventing a new way to do math. A new kind of shepherd's pie that's actually good. Taking care of a child.

Taako is hung up on Lup, though. He’s—

He hasn’t mourned properly, she doesn’t think. Neither has she, but—

That doesn’t matter. What matters is that Taako can’t meditate properly. He’d usually go insomniac when Lup passed on in various cycles, but this is a new degree. What matters is that his cooking lacks _something_ magical about it. He doesn’t have his sister. He doesn’t have his heart. He can't stand to mourn her for fear of losing it entirely.

So.

Fisher’s laid an egg, and Lucretia knows what she needs to do when it hatches. 

So.

He forgets Lup. He forgets the hundred years. He forgets everything, he thinks that he’s just a coworker of hers, and—

“Listen,” he says, “I’m good out here. Don’t need this co-directors thing getting personal, familial, none of that bullshit.”

She bites her tongue and she nods.

When she partners him up with Barry and Magnus and Merle, he resists. When Davenport joins the team, he resists. But he gives in. He always does.

It doesn't go half-badly.

And when he remembers—he knew how to get into the vault, Magnus and Angus had dared him— _gods_ , why did she let Taako raise a _child—_ to steal something from the vault, and he’d stolen the damned fish—he screams at her.

And she thinks she deserves this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have half of barry's already written, and i still need to write the rest. nice.  
> review, etc.


	3. reap til you weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> still we sing with our heroes, 33 rounds per minute  
> we're never going home until the sun says we're finished
> 
> (blue jeans and white t-shirts / gaslight anthem)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's fun.

“Not until we find her,” says Barry, “We need to vote on this—“  
  
“I mean just the two of us,” she says, “And Lup, if we find her. You and I—we’re the ones who can handle this.”  
  
“But Lup will _forget us._ ”  
  
“Lup is dead, Barry.”  
  
“I would _know_ , Lucretia. I _love_ her—“  
  
“So do I!”

She doesn’t mean to yell it. It’s childish of her.

She’s young. She has to go back to accepting childishness, at least for a few more years. She has an excuse, now that she's presenting herself to a world as twenty rather than as a crew of seven as one-nineteen.

She would be back by now. Barry, please, think.”  
  
“ _You_ please think!”  
  
“We can make her death fucking _mean_ something, Barry, I—You’re not thinking logically, and I understand. I do, you _know_ that I do, but—“  
  
And he sighs, shakes his head. 

“How do we go about this to minimize harm?”

“I have stories for everyone. I have lives for—for everyone. There’s a woodshop that needs an apprentice, it’s—it a good family that runs it, I have that for Magnus, and. For Merle and Davenport, there’s this beach where they can live, and—for Taako, I bought a stagecoach, I—“  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“Speaking of. Wanna drink?”  
  
“So you trust me?”  
  
“I have the stories. I need the strategy. You’re—you’re my best bet.”  
  
“I’m gonna have to tell them,” he says, after swigging, “The morals of this—the morals of this situation, Luke, I—“  
  
“Would they rather remember what they’ve done? Would they—“  


He sighs, again. His brain’s all over, all scattered.

“Sleep on it,” she says, and he does. He sleeps more than he usually does.

“I’m,” he says, and he pauses, “I’m willing to help you out. I—I don’t know if your plan’ll work any better, but at least by taking the relics outta the picture, we can stop collateral damage, and—Lup’ll be.”  
  
“Vindicated,” Lucretia says, as an assist. Because—she wanted this, right?

It goes smoothly—he helps her in carefully censoring bios so as not to lose something too vital, everyone is safe and happy for a time. Not Lup, but otherwise. 

And then, they learn that the bell is being used.

Barry feels obligated, and so does she. 

“This place is crawling with necrotic energy,” he says, stating the obvious, “Wish I brought some readers.”  
  
“Miller said that people aren’t wont to come out of this place the same,” she says, “Said she lost memories, here, and skills, and life—“  
  
“Well, we’re different than most people, huh?”  
  
“Suppose so.”

She loses ambidexterity and he loses his vision. She loses the puppy year, and he loses swimming. And so on. He won’t let her take twenty years, saysshe’s too young to lose that much, says, he changed so much in the ten years between twenty-four and thirty four, and that he can’t imagine what twenty all at once would even do to the person, and she can’t lose that. She won’t let him lose Lup, even if he won’t have to mourn anymore—that he even considers it is terrifying to her.

The bell rings, and he loses his physical form. She kills the lich possessing him, and he kills the lich’s sister.

The Reaper finds them soon after—two prominent liches, killed by one that’s never even been heard of, as well as a woman with eight deaths behind her.

“Is this some kind of necromancer’s _brawl_?” he asks them, “I—I appreciate you ridding me of the _burden_ of the twins, but.”  
  
“How’d it take you this long?” asks Lucretia, “They’re not hiding.”  
  
“ _You_ , ma’am, have that _staff_ , and I, me, do not.”

“Yeah,” Barry says, “But you’re an emissary of the goddamned goddess of Death.”

The Reaper sighs, says, “What the fuck is wrong with the both of you?”

After some storytelling, some cleverly told lies, and some charm, the two of them get a job offer.

It’s better than being alone, being undead, thinks Lucretia. Kravitz, the Head Reaper, is a nice fellow, once he’s off duty—has a flair for the dramatic that almost rivals Taako’s, and—well, that’s a bummer, that they can’t meet.

They find Lup trapped in her own staff, and they have a bounty on her—but they can’t. She hasn’t taken down two of the liches of this world, and, well, she’s got a death count higher than the both of them combined.

So they hide her. They hide her, and it’s though it’s not quite possible to touch or hold or 

Kravitz finds out, eventually.

“For a _girl_?” he says, and he laughs. They both shrug and agree.

Yeah, for a girl, they both say.

“I’m a romantic,” admits Kravitz, eventually, “As is the Queen, lucky for you.”

And then there are four.

They get caught up in reaping, the four of them, and eventually, without them having even noticed—

The world ends. And they drown, before they can do anything about it.

She never even got to try and save it, she thinks, black opal sparkling around her.

She never even began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my fiction podcast, violetbeach.libsyn.com. it's gay and there's a new ep out today.


	4. brotherly love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i’ve got a friend  
> she calls me brother  
> there ain’t nobody we cannot live without  
> we don’t need nothing  
> except each other  
> but there’s no reason to say it aloud
> 
> (we're not just friends / parks, squares and alleys)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> magnus and lucretia are so wonderfully, upsettingly similar in their need to protect their family under all costs.

Magnus is here to save the world, so, when asked to, he agrees in a heartbeat.

“Will it hurt them?” he asks.

“I’m not sure—does it—does it hurt, when you try and think about the songs from the conservatory?”  
  
“It’s more just—numbness. Radio static.”  
  
So they redact. And he carves them each a duck to remember him by, carves his initials in the bottom. He finishes Lup’s first, and it’s gone when she disappears. She brought it with her.

Barry is gone, Taako is empty, Merle is confused, Davenport can only say his own name. It’s—hard on Magnus, to see everyone like this. He doesn’t drop them off. He’s strong, but not in that way. 

“It’s not that I’m emotionless,” she tells him, when he accuses her of that, “You know that, Mags. You—“

“I dunno how you’re so much—older than me.”  
  
“I’m not.”  
  
“And you won’t ever be. One month, Luke. Never forget it. But you’re _older_.”  
  
“Twenty days,” she corrects, “Same hospital, same Istusian cleric who blessed us. Your mom was still recovering cuz your head was too damn big.”

“Weren’t you in the fancier wing, though?”  
  
“Yeah, but they brought your mom there. We talked about this when we met, Mags.”  
  
“Remember being nineteen?” he asks, sighs.

“We’re twenty-one now, Magnus,” she says.

“Not really,” he tightens his scarf around his neck as they head into the town with the Staff in it.

She almost responds, but thinks against it. And then, she sees Julia.

That was her contact, in this town, when she was looking for homes for everyone else.

“How can you be twenty-one but not really?” says the woman, “Lucy.”  
  
Lucretia nods.

“Lookin’ for something, or just dropping by?”  
  
“Looking for something,” says Magnus, faster than he should.

Julia laughs, says, “This your brother you mentioned?”

“One of them,” Lucretia shakes her head, “Magnus, this is—“  
  
“Julia Waxmen. Charmed.”  
  
“Burnus Magsides. Shit.”  


“So you’re looking for something but you can’t even remember your own name? Seems a bit counterproductive.”  
  
“Well,” says Lucretia, “He has me.”  
  
“She’s much more competent than me.”  
  
“I’d assume. Can I come along?”  
  
“No,” says Lucretia, just as Magnus says, “ _Please_.”

“Magnus, she’s—“

“I’m not busy. Whatcha lookin’ for?”  
  
“A staff,” says Lucretia, just as Magnus says, “The Bulwark Staff.”  
  
“Does your brother speak in static normally?”  
  
“I’m part robot.”  
  
“That’s cute.”

So they take in a third. A fourth, counting Davenport. A liaison to this unfamiliar world. She’s whipsmart, she’s young, she wants an escape from the mundanity of home. They need company. Magnus insists upon it. She’s better than Maureen. More down to earth.

Magnus has fallen in love before. He does it easily. He’d had a crush on Taako for a decade, then he’d moved onto some bartender who’d always give him free whiskey when he came into the bar on their shift, and then that agent of the death goddess from cycle thirty-one, and then and then and then. He’d lament breakups for years, thrust himself into something new.

And with Julia, it seems the same.

She sneaks off to grab the bell when they sneak off to elope.

They come back three days after her, giggly and Magnus looking his age for the first time in a century.

“Lucy,” sings Julia, “We’re _back_ —“  


And she limps back.

“Where’s your hand?” says Magnus, looking at her, and he looks afraid.

“I got the fucking bell,” she says, proud, sad.

“Where’s your _hand_ ,” he’s saying, not asking.

“Gone, but—It was lose a hand or lose twenty years, and—you’d hate me if I were older than you--twenty days, and all that, so—“  
  
“So you lost a _hand_?”  
  
“Human lifespans. They’re not what we know.”  
  
“You can’t—you call _me_ reckless—“  
  
“You just eloped.”  
  
“Hell _yeah_ he did,” says Julia, “That’s different than _losing a hand_!”

“What I did, I did for _us_ —“  
  
“You didn’t have to—“  
  
“Twenty years or a hand?”  
  
“Twenty years is—“  
  
He’s quiet, after that, remembers how time works.

“You can’t always take hits,” says Julia, “You gotta tell us when you do these things. I may not’ve been around for a hundred years, but I know that you get reckless when you’re alone, because both of you do.”  


Fischer lays an egg the day that Raven’s Roost burns. None of them notice it until it’s already hatched—that this world can still fall to such violence is terrifying to Lucretia.

She thinks, it maybe should be comforting.

“I,” says Julia, “Could have stopped it. I could’ve fought him. Could’ve—made sure he couldn’t hurt anybody, made sure he—“

“You couldn’t have,” says Magnus, “Nobody—Unless.”  
  
“ _Unless_ ,” says Lucretia on instinct, not liking where this is going.

“Unless: one of us happened to have made an extremely powerful device that—“  
  
“No,” says Lucretia, just as Julia says the same.

The mourning overtakes the three of them. Lucretia isn’t quite sure why she and Magnus are so hurt, but it feels necessary to mourn.

She thought by this point, she’d be numb to the loss of a people, and—for awhile, she was.

But _no_. Something about having someone from there, perhaps—

Or maybe it’s that it’s been five-and-a-half years since she last saw a world burn. Maybe it’s time, maybe it’s—

Regardless, there is something cathartic about the normality of mourning.

Magnus mentions home, one day.

“I don’t like seeing people hurting,” he says, “And—you were painting Sanluce on fire the other day. I saw it—“  
  
“I’m helping your wife heal.”  
  
“Have you healed, Luke?”

“I’ve had a century.”

“Cuz I haven’t. You deserve better than just—languishing.”  
  
“Nice vocab.”  
  
“You use it too much.”  
  
“Makes sense.”

“I’m lookin’ over the retractions to see why Taako’s the way he was when I saw his show the other day, and, uh—you can tell me when you need me, you know. When you need to feel.”  
  
“I’m not emotionless,” she says.

Days pass. Weeks pass. Months pass. A fish is born, and they sing and sing and sing. An organization is founded.

And she wakes up.

She’s on the moonbase, built by Maureen for her and her family. Davenport is eating cereal, Julia oatmeal, and Magnus, nervous-looking, nothing.

Which is weird.

So she asks him, “You not hungry?”  
  
“I’m—you slept in late.”  
  
“Just had a headache is all. You never worry about my—“  
  
“I’m gonna make pancakes. Chill, I’m not—I’m not worried.”  
  
He’s worried. Julia looks up at him like he’s done something.

“S’twin instinct.”

“We’re not twins,” he laughs, though the word twin makes him flinch for some reason.

“Twenty days. Still Neverwinter hospital, still two doors over, Mags.”  
  
“Was the hospital in Neverwinter?” he squints, and she does too.

Because it had to have been, right? It was in thealways-warm city, and, well, Neverwinter’s always-warm, so—

It must be.

“Yeah,” he says, shakes his head, taps his fingers on the glass of the table, “It was in Neverwinter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> julia is Good.
> 
> violetbeach dot libsyn dot com for original writing
> 
> review!


	5. father figures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you and i belong to the mornin'  
> it's a famous time for angels  
> can't you hear 'em callin'?
> 
> (you and i belong / simone felice)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait! it's finals week. you know how it is. here are some Dad Feelings.

“Well, kid, do you think it’ll help?”

It’s nine months into the war. Almost a year since they’ve been on Toril. Faerûn, specifically. The gauntlet has found itself in new, dangerous hands, and Lucretia knows she should act now, or people will die.

So, she asks Merle for help.  
  
“I think it’ll stop the war; think it’ll stop the fighting. I need—“

“You can say it, c’mon.”  
  
“I need _help_ , Merle, and you—you always have given it to me. When I need it, but can’t ask for it.”  
  
“Bam. So, what’s the plan?”  
  
And in the cases, it goes well. Lup’s a bit less loving, Taako a bit less empathetic, Magnus a bit less sharp, but it goes well, for all intents and purposes. Barry’s too nervous to even _look_ at the twins and Magnus, which is a problem, but. She sets Magnus and the twins up as former foster siblings—with a father figure, Merle. And Barry as a friend.

And then, there’s Davenport. He’s all business. Won’t accept Merle’s gentle teasing, won’t tolerate jokes from his—

Well. His ex-husband, Lucretia supposes. His husband, Lucretia re-supposes. Legally, they’re still married. She doesn’t know shit about Faerûn divorce law. Gods, she doesn’t know shit about divorce law _period._

“I don’t need some—some granola _hippie_ and some _teenage bard_ to tell me what to do with my life,” says Davenport. 

“Dav,” says Merle, in that coaching tone he always uses, “You—“  
  
“ _Captain_ ,” says Davenport.

“Of what?” asks Lucretia, angry—this argument has been hours long. Merle had helped her build up his past—most of her notes about him were broad, sweeping. Her fear of upsetting authority had left his life a mystery to her, and, in finding out his past, it seems he’s _always_ been in need of a little rage, “What are you the captain of?”  


And he shuts up, after that.

“He loves the sea,” says Merle, when they set him off on a boat to find himself, or whatever. That’s literary. That’s poetic. That’s _peak Lucretia_ , says the tiny Lup in the corner of her brain.

“Don’t we all?” she says, of the sea. She looks at the sunset, smiles despite the utter wrongness of her home only having one sun.

“Him most of all,” he says, of the Captain. He looks sad. He _is_ sad, Lucretia decides. Everyone is.

They retrieve the Staff from where she hid it, and the Sash from an artist that had recently acquired it. Maureen is not much for clericism, so she won’t tell the two of them about the Bell because of pure spite, despite the fact that she _knows where it is_.

“I miss ‘em,” he says, one day.

It’s been years. They check in on them constantly. It’s—

“Magnus is getting married,” she says, “Are we going?”  
  
“We are. I RSVP’d. You’re my plus one.”  
  
“Can you believe that _Magnus Burnsides_ sent _RSVP_ s?”

“He’s a good kid, Lucy-lu.”  
  
She sighs. It’s alright from him. 

Like a proud father, “All grown up.”  
  
“When I last visited,” she says, “He and Julia’s dog tackled me and he climbed on top and joined in.”  
  
Like an even prouder father, “Mostly grown up. Lup and Barry back together, yet?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Damnit.”  
  
“Pan bless you.”  
  
“You’re an ass sometimes.”  
  
“I know we’re not _related_ , per se, but perhaps it runs in the family.”  
  
A beat, and, “Yeah,” a pat on the back, “Yeah, it does, kid.”

“And I love you all for it.”  
  
“Can we say we love them anymore?”

“Who’s to say? I love what they were, so I suppose I love them now.”  
  
“I just love everybody.”  
  
“‘Cept—“  
  
“Oh, hush.”

“Never.”  
  
“You know,” he says, “I’m proud of you.”  
  
“Please don’t—“  
  
“I am. You’re trying so hard for them.”  
  
“They’re not going to forgive me. They’ll forgive you, but. Not me. Never me.”  
  
“Well, those hypothetical versions of them in your ol’ walnut are fuckin’ idiots. I’m sure they’ll forgive you. Actually,” and he stops, and he smiles.

“What?”

“I’m so damn proud of you, Lucy.”

Magnus’ wedding is nice—Merle dances with him, Taako cooks, Lup gives a rousing speech, Barry drinks in the corner. It’s what Magnus’ wedding should be.

She’s chatting Lup at the reception.

“My dad brought fancy wine.”  
  
“Did he, now? I didn’t know he knew where I stashed it.”  
  
“You _hide_ the alcohol from him?”  
  
“No, just the fancy ones. He can’t reach ‘em.”  
  
“Maybe he bought it. You wanna try it? ‘Sprobably moonshine, actually.”  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
And she notices Magnus’ eyes boring into her from across the tent.

“Iunno, he poured some out for Mags and T earlier, I said not yet because I have a party execution plan.”

“Getting wasted with _style_ ,” she says.

“Crabsolutely, Luke, I’m glad that you understand where I’m coming from. As far as his friends go, you, uh. Don’t suck so much.”  
  
Magnus is walking towards her. She sips her champagne.

Fancy wine her ass. She thought she smelled fish this morning.

_Fuck_.

Magnus’ fists are balled.

“You’re a piece of shit,” says Magnus.

“And you’re drunk. And married now, congrats.”  
  
“You’re just gonna go through this reveal _tipsy_?”  
  
“And you, with this confrontation, _drunk_? Go dance with your wife, Magnus. I—I wanted you to be fucking happy, Magnus. I—“  
  
“So you took _home_? Taako’s too mad to even come over and _talk_ to you, he’s busy cursing out Merle, cuz that’s an—acceptable target. Who he knows isn’t entirely _at fault_ , unlike—“

He pauses, throws a flask towards Lup, who swigs it, eyebrows furrowed.

“Shit,” says Lup

Lucretia takes the moment of fuzz to find Merle.

“You could have asked,” she says.

“I really couldn’t. You need—help. Luce, you really—“  
  
“I don’t have help,” she says, “I don’t even have family, now. Or the idea of it. I have—“  
  
“You have me,” he says.

She exhales.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> violetbeach dot libsyn dot com.
> 
> comment! i love you!


	6. despite everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> all i ever wanted was a  
> life in your shape  
> so i follow the white lines  
> follow the while lines  
> keep my eyes on the road  
> as i ache
> 
> (strawberry blond / mitski)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (there is some established blupcretia here, as a v. jsyk.)

Someone’s knocking at her door. Nobody knocks unless it’s emotional, now, so—

“It’s three-thirteen. Who?”  


“Lup.”  
  
“What’s—“  


Too gently, “I need a pen.”  
  
She groans into her pillow, “Come the fuck in.”  
  
Lup is crying. It’s dark, but Lucretia can see that much.

“The gauntlet?”  
  
“Don’t—“  
  
“Lup.”  
  
“I’m going out to get it. I’ve traced its location, I—I’m going to hide it. Where nobody can find it. I need a pen so I can leave a note before I head out—“  
  
“You’re not telling anyone?”  
  
“Well. I’ve told you, haven’t I?”  
  
“I don’t count.”  
  
“You do, babe.”  
  
“You’re the one crying, Lup, let’s discuss your emotions rather than your idea that I have some kind of self-esteem problem—“  
  
“You do, but point taken.”

“I don’t. Lup, I—I think I know how to stop the war.”  
  
“Elaborate.”  
  
And she does. She leaves out the bit about her plan—that’ll come later. That needs to come later.

And Lup says, “Have you tested this?”  
  
Fischer chimes, as if they understand.

Which they do. Which is strange. 

Lucretia takes out a pen, not letting Lup near it, and writes down the conversation they just had, and she feeds it to Fischer. 

“What were we talking about?” she asks.

“I—“  
  
“Drink.”

And she does.

And she says, “Holy _shit_ , Luke.”

“Are you in?”

“I can’t—I can’t _not_ be, have you told everyone—?“  
  
“No. I’m not going to.”  
  
Lup nods, pieces going together in her head.

“Were you going to do this alone?”  
  
“Well, I can’t _anymore_. Can’t just re-erase your memory, can I?”  
  
And Lup, with a pause, laughs, “I guess it’s just us, then, babe. Our weight to carry.”  
  
Lucretia tilts her head.

“C’mon, let’s do it,” says Lup, “End the war, let the crew live their lives, reform the light, come up with a plan c.”  
  
“Plan C.”  
  
“My plan failed. I’m—I’m okay saying that. Your plan _will_.”  
  
“I don’t agree.”  
  
“Scientifically speaking—“  
  
“Logically speaking—“  
  
“We’ll burn this bridge when we get to it, then.”  
  
“That’s not the—“  
  
“S’a _joke_ , Cree, get it? A language joke.”  
  
“I’m sleep deprived.”

“Aren’t we all?” Lup sighs, sinks her shoulders, “Wanna smoke?”  
  
“Please.”

And they do.

They erase it all in the morning. Redact haphazardly, but enough to get the job done. Taako won’t remember Lup, because what’s the point of him mourning her if she’s not dead?

“He deserves better,” says Lup, “I—“  
  
“Don’t.”

“He does. My Relic—“  
  
“All of our Relics.”  
  
“My _plan—_ “  
  
“That we all agreed to.”  
  
“You didn’t.”  
  
“But I went along with it.”

Davenport is a shell. Magnus is sent to a new home. Merle is sent to a beach. Taako is given a show.

And Barry—

“I have a job lined up for him,” she says, “A teacher.”  
  
“He’s terrible with kids.”  
  
“More an academic, I suppose. And it’s college kids.”  
  
“That’s better.See him relating to _teens_.”  
  
“He’s _thirty._ ”  
  
“Exactly. I love him."  
  
Lucretia rolls her eyes. First time Lup’s smiled all day.

It goes swimmingly. At least, that’s how Lup says it goes, at first. They obtain the staff, steal the Oculus—Lup woos a noblewoman out of it, and Lucretia can’t help but feel a familiar pang of jealousy that she thought she’d lost.

“Babe,” Lup says, one day—they’re in Maureen’s lab and Lup is halfway through sketching out how the fuck radio towers work, “I—“  
  
“Yes?” says Lucretia, reading some shitty Faerunian romance novel. 

“Nothing,” says Lup, and she crumples up the paper. “Fucking _typing._ I miss it.”

“A flawed technology,” Lucretia shrugs, “Was never huge on it.”  
  
“You typed up your final drafts. And I have Fantasy Carpal Tunnel.”  


“A nightmare scenario.”  
  
“You have a backup hand!”  
  
“My sister had it in both.”

“ _Gross_.”

“Baby,” teases Lucretia.

“M’a century older than you. No right to make fun of me.”

“And yet.”  
  
“And yet.”  
  
“You’re—“  
  
“Yes?”  


And she kisses Lucretia, which, prior to what they did, was not uncommon. The erasure had done something to them too—made them both colder. Made them less touchy. Which, perhaps, was good. Lup was mourning a man who was still alive, Lucretia was dead-set on figuring out a plan c, there is _no_ need for intimacy.

Except that it feels so wonderful. It feels so kind and warm and sweet.

So she kisses back.

Maureen walks in just then, and she stares, says, “I thought you weren’t involved.”  
  
“Well, involved’s a funny word,” says Lup, “So conditional.”  
  
“Very funny word,” Lucretia shrugs.

“I have alead on the bell,” says Maureen, “If you have a lead on radio.”

Lup throws the crumpled paper ball toward Maureen, who catches it with natural dexterity.

“Felicity Wilds. Liches who live there are trying to pick it up, so you’d best hurry.”  
  
“ _Liches_ ,” Lup mocks fear and disgust, and Lucretia suppresses a laugh, “So terrifying. What even _are_ their weaknesses, Luke? I haven’t the slightest, they’re just _so mysterious_ ,” and so on.  


So they have the bell. They beat the liches, easy, escape before the Raven Queen’s people can find them.

And then, days later—maybe a week, at the most, there’s a news story

Well, not a news story.

A wanted poster in the paper. Living or dead. On the run from the deaths of forty in Glamour Springs. 

“We have to find him.”  


“Living or dead,” says Lucretia, and Lup stares at her.

“I’m going to go and find him.”  
  
“I’m coming with you. Imagine being on the run from the law and, bam, there’s your identical-fucking-twin. You need someone with Disguise Self, and, Lup? You don’t.”

“Can you use it _on_ me?”  
  
“I have theories.”  
  
“Well, that’ll have to do. Make ‘em work, babe.”  
  
They don’t find him. They don’t find anyone—not when Raven’s Roost burns, not when Hecuba Roughridge files a missing person report, not when Professor Barry J. Bluejeans dies under mysterious circumstances, a mysterious red cloud arising from his corpse—

They don’t find anyone. Davenport, blank of a slate as he is, is concerned even. Lup insists upon his inoculation, and he overcomes his anger after three months at her insistence. But he leaves.

But he leaves.

Because people do that, don’t they? Lup willleave eventually, too, and Maureen, and Bain, and Boyland, and Johann, and Avi, and Killian, and everyone who they’ve found to help them—

“You’re spiraling,” says Lup.

“You’re shutting down,” says Lucretia.

“And yet.”  
  
“And yet.”

Time goes on. Eventually, Phandolin burns, as is its wont.

Taako cracks a _joke_ about it, and Lup rushes out of the room, Lucretia after her.

“He’s different,” Lup says, “Different and it’s my fault. Somebody got _hurt—_ “  
  
“And a town burned, and it’s not your fault, and it’s—“  
  
“I have to fix this.”  
  
“So he’ll help.”  


“He _can’t_. He’s—we _broke_ him.”

“And that’s my fault. But—“

“We broke him.”

“We’ is generous to me.”

“And yet.”

She does not respond in kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL THAT'S LEFT IS PURE ANGST.
> 
> comments rule me.
> 
> check out my fiction podcast, violet beach, on itunes, spotify, google play, wherever.


	7. atlas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hear me,  
> o, woman that has gone astray  
> gone astray  
> your friends,  
> your friends will always just be in your way  
> trust me,  
> they'll die or leave you, either way
> 
> (beekeeper / keaton henson)

When she leaves each of their lives, not all of her exits are made equal.

With Davenport, it is not a true exit so much as an inability to hear him speak, a growing numbness to his numbness; with Taako, it is a wink and a nod and a you’re going to be amazing; with Barry, it is a good morning and a we’re out of brown sugar for your coffee; with Magnus, it is a a this is your home now; with Merle, it is a it’s so beautiful here; with Lup, it is a here’s a pen, please come back soon.

She does it by herself. She has to. It is her too-blue too-dim sky to shoulder and it is her too-sad too-proud family to protect.

She doesn’t talk much, in her years alone.

Not too alone. Not too not alone. There’s Maureen, there’s always Maureen, who is tender but who is self-centered, whose son is a shithead, whose projects are dangerous, and—

And there is Killian and there is Avi and there is and there is and there is—

But she is alone. Merle’s wedding is terrible. Magnus’ is joyful, and she is drunk and alone in the corners of both of them. Taako’s shows are magical, but he is empty, and so is she.

And Barry.

Barry never finds her, but she sees the occasional flash of red in her periphery and prays that he sees her and asks her why. Not because she has an answer, but because she needs someone to ask her.

And Davenport.

He is always by her side, hanging onto some unsecured bond that she wishes so desperately was not there—she cannot stand to see him like this. Perhaps it is selfish, perhaps it is—

And Lup.

And Lup, and Lup, and Lup, and—where the _fuck_ is she? She promised she’d be back soon. She promised she'd give Lucretia her pen back, she promised a kiss when she got back, she--

She can’t write anymore. She really can’t. She tries poetry, she tries prose, she tries people watching, but none work anymore.

It is the loss of her muses, she thinks, and then, no, they are not her muses, that’s reductive, they were so much more. Are so much more. Will be so much more—

Wonderland is easy, because she thinks she deserves it. Wonderland is easy, because she has abandoned before.

When she leaves Cam’s life, it is with an apology and a sprint. Her joints ache and her mind burns, and she is—

She is.

Raven’s Roost burns the day she gets back from Wonderland.

She weeps at a hypothetical loss—one uncomfirmed—until she finds his name in an article about a competition days away. She wishes she could mourn the city, but she finds herself uncaring once she knows he’s alive.

She sees the wanted poster for Taako and she makes _sure_ no police will remember it. He deserves that much from her. He deserves some kind of safety.

She hears of Merle’s disappearance and she sends his wife a goddamned edible arrangement.

(And she prays. She is not the praying type, but for him, she is.)

Time goes on. Fisher has a child. She feeds the child. She builds something new, something better, and—

There are three men in front of her, and they are so different than what she knows.

“Welcome,” she says, and she grips her staff tight, and—

The sky on her shoulders is just the slightest bit lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading this monstrosity.
> 
> i love you.

**Author's Note:**

> YEAHHH
> 
> uh. reviews are nice.


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